English

Diophantine equations, Platonic solids, McKay correspondence, equivelar maps and Vogel's universality

Mathematical Physics 2017-01-04 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory Algebraic Geometry Group Theory math.MP

Abstract

We notice that one of the Diophantine equations, knm=2kn+2km+2nmknm=2kn+2km+2nm, arising in the universality originated Diophantine classification of simple Lie algebras, has interesting interpretations for two different sets of signs of variables. In both cases it describes "regular polyhedrons" with kk edges in each vertex, nn edges of each face, with total number of edges m|m|, and Euler characteristics χ=±2\chi=\pm 2. In the case of negative mm this equation corresponds to χ=2\chi=2 and describes true regular polyhedrons, Platonic solids. The case with positive mm corresponds to Euler characteristic χ=2\chi=-2 and describes the so called equivelar maps (charts) on the surface of genus 22. In the former case there are two routes from Platonic solids to simple Lie algebras - abovementioned Diophantine classification and McKay correspondence. We compare them for all solutions of this type, and find coincidence in the case of icosahedron (dodecahedron), corresponding to E8E_8 algebra. In the case of positive kk, nn and mm we obtain in this way the interpretation of (some of) the mysterious solutions (Y-objects), appearing in the Diophantine classification and having some similarities with simple Lie algebras.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.06062,
  title  = {Diophantine equations, Platonic solids, McKay correspondence, equivelar maps and Vogel's universality},
  author = {H. M. Khudaverdian and R. L. Mkrtchyan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.06062},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

11 pages